Sunday, June 13, 2010

When I started watching Treme, it was before our flood here in Middle Tennessee. Since then I've been thinking a lot about the contrast between the two events. I don't know about the rest of the Gulf because New Orleans got most of the attention just as Nashville did during ours. Bigger cities each with a heritage of music and tourism. During and after the flood here, the state and local governments rushed to organize and handle the crisis. President Obama was on the phone with TN governor Phil Bredesen while it was still raining. FEMA was dispatched here at once, and a knitting friend said they were at her house and that she had a check in the bank within a week, I think.

Flood relief centers were everywhere. Neighbors and strangers pitched in and helped each other. All around the worst damaged areas, people had their houses emptied of destroyed furniture and possessions, sheet rock torn down, carpets taken up, and all out on the curb for removal. Huge trucks took it away. Water was donated, homes made available, and help everywhere. Tennessee's nickname is the Volunteer State, which came from all the volunteers sent to fight in the Mexican War. Texas should be grateful. Tennesseans died for them and helped get their republic and state started. That's why the UT team is called the Tennessee Vols - for Volunteers. But I digress.

We had organization from the government from federal, state, local as well as many organizations and people who are still getting things back in order. Part of it is that we didn't have "Heck of a Job Brownie" bumbing things, but there's more to it, I think. What is it? We didn't have all the looting, but law enforcement officers guarded neighborhoods and the residents paid attention, too. People were displaced here, too, and still are. Some lost their homes and won't get them back or be able to rebuild. Others will. Maybe this kind of help happened in New Orleans, and we just didn't hear about it. It seems that places here are cleaned up and usable in a much shorter time because they were still having a victim attitude when we were there five years after Katrina.

Why didn't New Orleans do this? Is it a Grasshopper vs Ant kind of thing? Does it have to do with learned helplessness? What's the difference between the two disasters and recovery? I don't know but am trying to figure it out.

Now another man-made catastrophe is bringing the Gulf to its knees because of BP. How much can they take? As Rachel Maddow said, we're getting our seafood from the same place we're drilling for oil. Now the shrimp and oysters are gone. So is the livelihood of many family businesses. It's infuriating and heartbreaking.

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comments:

Probably a lot of everything. Media attention, different approaches by gov't. I really admire President Obama for not throwing up his hands and yelling 'there is NO pleasing you people!!!' Bob has a great cartoon up of Obama as Cinderella that says it all.

The sad part is that it has become more clear how corporations are running this country and not the people. I feel sorry for Obama. He got mediocre assholes like Palin pointing fingers when she is nothing but a quitter. And yet she gets the corporation sponsorship.

About Me

The Waking

The Waking I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.I learn by going where I cannot go.We think by feeling. What is there to know?I hear my being dance from ear to ear.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.Of those so close beside me, which are you?God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,And learn by going where I have to go.Light takes the Tree, but who can tell us how?The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.Great Nature has another thing to doTo you and me; so take the lively air,And, lovely, learn by going where to go.This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.What falls away is always. And is near.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.I learn by going where I have to go.